Fresh Air

Many jazz fans hate biopic films, but critic Kevin Whitehead likes noticing which true elements get in — or get left out — as messy lives are squeezed into stock-story formulas.

A poet, novelist and screenwriter, Hayes' name largely fell from view following his death in 1985. Now, with the re-issue of three of his novels, his reputation has been making a comeback.

Ewing's 1919 looks back on a century-old riot in Chicago, set off after a black teen drowned while being stoned by white people. She says the systemic racism that plagued the U.S. then still exists.

Journalist Jamiles Lartey calls policing an "avatar of American racism." Justin Chang reviews Spike Lee's Da 5 Bloods. Davidson and Apatow talk about their new film, The King of Staten Island.

Howard Bryant, author of The Heritage, discusses the history of social protest among African American athletes, including Jackie Robinson and Muhammad Ali. Originally broadcast Jan. 13, 2018.

In 1986, Terry Gross interviewed Baldwin, one of the most influential black writers of the civil rights era. Then, in 2017, she spoke to Peck, director of I Am Not Your Negro, about Baldwin.

Decades after the war, four black veterans return to Vietnam to recover a stash of buried gold. The timely film is a critique of the U.S.' long, shameful history of devaluing its black soldiers.

Davidson plays a fictionalized version of himself in The King of Staten Island, a film about a young man grieving the loss of his firefighter dad. Director Apatow calls the movie a "hopeful story."

The conversations since George Floyd's death have felt different, journalist Jamiles Lartey says: There's less of the "few bad apples" argument and much more of the "What is wrong with this system?"

Washington Post reporter Matt Zapotosky talks about the attorney general's role in the Trump administration's forceful response to the largely peaceful George Floyd protests in Washington, DC.

Author Doug Swanson chronicles centuries of abuse within the famed Texas law enforcement agency, including burning villages, hunting runaway slaves and murdering Mexicans and Mexican-Americans.

Over 90-some years of movies about jazz, many films have spun a familiar lick, sometimes falling back on stock standards when inspiration fails, and sometimes knowingly quoting from older works.